hola comrades! here we are - Thing #1 is so happening. today you're going to see the new track, "bigger on the inside", up on bandcamp. it's your patronage that makes this possible. for some of you (the $3+ people) you'll be getting an mp3 to download directly). it's been so heart-growing seeing all these people tweeting that they wish they could support the patreon but can't.... lots of broke teenagers, broke college students, broke whoevers...and here's the point: i've been telling them to please stop apologizing, that they don't need to support the patreon if they can't. they can enjoy the music for free with no guilt. why? because there are enough people supporting who CAN - this is why the content can remain free. i know it's hard for people to wrap their heads around - but it's the way i like it. i think this system is fucking great. those who can afford to support, do, and you guys make up for everyone out there who cannot. so PLEASE know, deeply, that your support, even if it's just a dollar, is covering someone who, at this very minute, is downloading the track and not having to pay for it, because they have no disposable income for art right now. in time, they may, and they'll pay it forward. this is how community works, and it's beautiful. so....THANK YOU. you're part of a huge circle, and it's awesome. now....about this track. you may have seen me playing this song live, somewhere in the world. if you've read "the art of asking", i told a little story about writing it, but i'll expand there. i wrote this song in the thick of what has been one of the hardest years of my adult life. i hadn't written a song for over a year - because i was really throttled by everything. my best friend anthony's cancer battle, being stuck in boston to deal with it, canceling tour, the kickstarter musician controversy exploding in my face, my management falling apart, i was barely holding it together and then the boston bombing and the ensuing poem kerfuffle happened - and bam, i was down. really just...knocked out. done. i couldn't feel enough to write anything, i was too fucking sad. i ran into a musician friend of mine at someone's university recital a few days before writing this and she grabbed my arm and said "listen, amanda. i was at a party last night and every single person there was talking shit about how much of an asshole you were for writing that poem. i kept my mouth shut but *i* just wanted you to know: i think you're amazing." the next night i was in new york and ran into chad, the guitarist from the grand theft orchestra. he'd been at a party in brookyn and the conversation had turned to Amanda Palmer's Catastrophic Life. he said: "i mean, these people hated you SO much, dude. they have no idea who you are but i swear every person at this party was talking shit about it. wow. how do you deal with it?" i was like: thanks, friends. how did i deal? not well. i think there's only so much of that you can take before you just want to go to bed and cry. neil and i were living in a rental house in cambridge at the time, and i was so depressed on a couple days i did just that: i literally didn't get out of bed if i didn't have some crucial work to do. things hadn't been that bad since college. jeremy got very sick around that time, too. it felt like my entire life consisted of being at hospital bedsides, watching things drip into the people i loved, and defending my right to be a human being with feelings. i kind of gave up. but i also felt this weird perspective, or at least, the IDEA that i should be getting perspective. bouncing back and forth between getting yelled at on buzzfeed and seeing someone dying of cancer SHOULD give you perspective, right? right? one of the last times i visited jeremy i was waiting for him to get a cancer treatment and reading some fanmail in the waiting room. the story was so sad and so gruesome. and i felt so stupid and so helpless. at least with jeremy and anthony i could do specific things: i could cancel tour...i could drive them to hospitals, i could...i dunno. help? but i was starting to feel too useless to help. then jeremy died. i was in the rental house when i got the idea for this song and neil was writing and there were other people in the house, so i grabbed the ukulele and took it outside. it was just turning spring and warm enough to hide out there. i can't write with anybody listening. i went into the backyard to try to find a quiet place to write. i hid behind the garage. i started writing. i was happy....i hadn't written something in so long. then the recycling truck came. i moved into the neighbor's back yard. i finished about half the song there, and a few night later, i was due to deliver a kickstarter house party in hnashville. i forced myself to finish the song for the party (i was even a half hour late, promising the whole crowd it was worth it, as a scribbled out the last verse) and then played it for a little room of only about 15 people with the lyrics at my feet. those people deserve a thank you - they were my first audience for this fragile creature, and they treated me with total kindness. a wrong reaction and i think i might have torn it up. when i went to record it, i knew i wanted zoe to play cello. zoe has been one of my favorite collaborators for YEARS (you can hear her cello on "astronaut" and other songs on "who killed amanda palmer", and if you saw that tour in 2008, she was my touring cello-slayer). we became a little closer when, a few months ago, zoe's husband jeff was diagnosed with advanced cancer. tumors all through his body. they have a three year old son, alex. they basically gave jeff a death sentence. but they'd given anthony a death sentence, too. he'd been given six months when they first diagnosed him with leukemia, and here we are, four years in, and he's just had a bone marrow transplant and is hanging in there. so maybe jeff would have the same luck. he didn't. about two weeks ago, jeff died after a noble battle. zoe detailed a lot of her hardships on her facebook page, and she's turned into one of my personal heroes. the fact that she recorded this cello part while she was going through all, while jeff was in the deepest parts of his battle, this means...everything to me. i don't think i've ever made a more meaningful sound recording. these people, this story, these instruments. it all fits together. this is the thing. this is all about so much more than music, if you get what i mean. the music is the tip of the iceberg: it's the thread that ties a gigantic unseen sweater together: us, the people, the life, the cancer, the depression, the friendship, the stories. this is who we are. one favor: please listen in a quiet place, with headphones if you can't get into a good quiet place. this is about the furthest thing from background music you'll ever hear. it'll sound okay on laptop speakers, but it'll hit you in the feels ten times as hard if you can hear that cello bow attacking the strings, which gets a little lost on laptop listening. super-ideal, per artsits perscription: alone or holding the hand of a loved one, in a darkened room, with a great stereo and at LEAST two glasses on wine on board. here are the lyrics. i was just doing an interview with the harvard book review and mentioned this song. the lyrics started at the beginning, the way some songs do. some songs begin, in my head, with the chorus, but this one started on Line One. when i got to the chorus and the lyric "bigger on the inside" tumbled out i found myself thinking: "no way. well, maybe. is that allowed? are you really, REALLY, going to make a corny dr who reference in a song about death and cancer? is that allowed? come on." and because i've spent enough time practicing the ignoring of that voice, i answered: "yeah. sure i fucking am. i can do whatever i want. suck it, fraud police." ................ BIGGER ON THE INSIDE You'd think I'd shot their children From the way that they are talking And there's no point in responding Cause it will not make them stop And I am tired of explaining And of seeing so much hating In the very same safe haven Where I used to just see helping I've been drunk and skipping dinner Eating skin from off my fingers And I tried to call my brother But he no longer exists I keep forgetting to remember That he would have been much prouder If he saw me shake these insults off Instead of getting bitter.... I am bigger on the inside But you have to come inside to see me Otherwise you're only hating Other people's low-res copies You'd think I'd learn my lesson From the way they keep on testing My capacity for pain And my resolve to not get violent But though my skin is thickened Certain spots can still be gotten It is typically human of me Thinking I am different To friends hooked up to hospital machines To fix their cancer And there is no better place than from this Waiting room to answer The French kid who wrote an e-mail To the website late last night His father raped him and he's scared He asked me How do you keep fighting? And the truth is I don't know I think it's funny that he asked me Cause I don't feel like a fighter lately I am too unhappy You are bigger on the inside But your father cannot see You need to tell someone be strong And somewhere some dumb rock star truly loves you You'd think I'd get perspective From my view here by the bedside It is difficult to see the ones I love So close to death All their infections and proscriptions And the will to live at all in question Can I not accept that my own problems Are so small You took my hand when you woke up I had been crying in the darkness We all die alone but I am so, so glad That you are here You whispered: "We are so much bigger on the inside, You, me, everybody Some day when you're lying where I am You'll finally get it, beauty We are so much bigger Than another one can ever see But Trying is the point of life So don't stop trying Promise me." ............. i love you all so so much. thank you, thank you, thank you. and one last favor. i know it may seem like i'm asking a lot, but this last one is important. the only way other people will hear this song is if you sent it to them. i have no record label. nobody at any college radio stations will get a copy of this on CD. no publicist has been hired to beg spin.com or pitchfork or stereogum to please please premiere this track. nothing. it's just you, at the moment. if you work for one of those blogs or magazines, come find me, i'd love to talk to you. hit me up. and you normal people: if you love this song, send it out into the world. you are the media. you are my publicist. post to facebook, post to twitter, send to a friend, do your worst. just push it out into the world, and thank you. it doesn't happen by itself....it needs a doula. X AFP p.s. the credits: recorded at Q Division (Somerville, MA) and mixed at Mad Oak Studios (Allston, MA) by wonderful friend and engineer benny grotto (you'll remember him from "no, virginia", "8 in 8", and tons of other projects). zoe recorded her cello in san fran and beamed it over. benny engineered the final mix. p.p.s. if you have never heard zoe's solo cello musicL: you must. check it out here, and thank me later: http://www.zoekeating.com/ photo: Ieva Urbaite, photo used by kind permission tattooee: lyrics from "in my mind", on Denali Hyatt

HERE IT IS, THING NUMBER THREE. Patreon folks, you've been emailed the track. anybody else reading this, all info about where to get the track is below. here's the story. i wrote this song in August 2012, in the crack between the Kickstarter happening and Theatre Is Evil getting officially released into the world (that September). i was in upstate New York staying in a strange house near Bard College, shooting the video for "the bed song", and getting ready to go on tour. I don't remember why exactly I had the day off in the strange house, but I did, and this song popped into my head. I wrote it on paper and into my phone and then asked the guys at bard if I could borrow a room with a. piano when I got to work that day, and I found the chords. I had a show with neil a few days later, and I played it for the crowd on piano, and a few days (weeks?) later I was at some gig or party or another and really wanted to share it, but I was, for some reason, pianoless. so, more or less, on the spot, I found the chords on the ukulele (it put the song into a new key) and played a stripped down ukulele version. and i'll be damned if the ukulele version wasn't better. that was a first - basically the polar opposite of my experience of writing "the killing type", which was plucked out on ukulele in a hotel before I could finally manifest in onto piano, where it sounded, well, real. but something about this song just sounded better stripped down and strummed as a opposed to arpeggiated on a fancy piano, and that was that. this song is a true story. the bar - upstairs on the square - unfortunately closed about a year ago. and I never got to tell the bartender that he'd made his way into verse three. In a roundabout way, this song also really inspired the Patreon. when I played the early rough version of the song on piano at that gig at bard, somebody got a bootleg phone recording and sent it to me. I decided...what the fuck, I'll just throw it up on bandcamp. but with no magic infrastructure, it was hard to point to it, even as a special, random, weird thing. I found myself wishing I had a more "real" portal for releasing one-off Things when i had them. the thing about songs is that the artist or the machine can (attempt to) dictate their importance, their relevance. we've been doing it for years by the way we release shit, hide shit, order shit, bury shit, re-package and remix shit, and even the way we title shit. I think I'm kind of done trying to do that - at least for a while. so...just pretend *drum roll* *viral marketing campaign* *iphone commercial backdrop soundtrack* *massive radioplay* ....introducing amanda palmer's absolutely non-hit single THE THING ABOUT THINGS. if you love the song, share it with someone. that's the nicest thing you can do, ever. and if you want to become a patron and get these pieces of content emailed to you for as little as $1, please join us. it's fun here. and if you're a patron, thank you for making me possible. music & lyrics written by Amanda Palmer ukulele & vocals - Amanda Palmer recorded at Q Division in Somerville, Ma mixed at Mad Oak Studios in Allston, Ma engineered & mixed by Benny Grotto artwork by Famehouse produced by Amanda Palmer & Benny Grotto Available for free/paid download at Amandapalmer.net: http://shop.amandapalmer.net/collections/digital Bandcamp: https://amandapalmer.bandcamp.com/track/the-thing-about-things And available for purchase shortly on iTunes and all major digital distributors. LYRICS: THE THING ABOUT THINGS i’ve loaned a lot of things to a lot of friends like dresses and records and books and some of the time i never see them again and in a weird way i think that it works because the thing about things is they start turning evil when you start to forget what they’re for and so if you’re not sure what you did with my sweater i’ll just have to love you a little bit more i had a ring it belonged to my grandfather he was a mason and gay and he was distant and bitter for all of my childhood we never had much to say he wasn’t the type to give tokens of affection and so i stole ring when he died and twenty years on when i lost it at a bar i thought that’s fine I DON’T WANT HIM IN MY LIFE because the thing about things is that they can start meaning things nobody actually said and if he couldn’t make something mean something for me i had to make up what it meant i can carry everything i need in one collapsing suitcase i can carry everyone i love in one phone application built to maximize the facetime with the friends i’m bent on making actually i want to be alone to mourn the loss of what this cost i think it’s a poem and i think it keeps going i’ve borrowed and lost lots of things and three nights ago in the bar where i lost it the bartender gave me the ring and i lie in bed with my phone in my hand thinking what can i fix with which app and i call my grandfather and he doesn’t answer and i have to make peace with that fact because the thing about things is that they can start meaning things nobody actually said and if you’re not allowed to love people alive then you learn how to love people dead the thing about things is that they can start meaning things nobody actually said and if you’re not allowed to love people alive then you learn how to love people dead